Our two senior rooms have begun to prepare for our community garden. A great start, looking forward to the next step in term 3!

We are repurposing the old school pool. The concept is to create up to 12 garden beds (2.4m2) which will be planted and maintained by the students. Produce grown will then be donated to the community to support healthy lifestyle choices. 

In week eight we got to celebrate the talents we have at Te Kura o Ōtākaro, Avon School. The contestants were varied and were amazing! What courage and skills they shared with us!

This event was organised by three of our senior girls and they worked hard to gain sponsorship for our prizes. We'd like to acknowledge Paper Plus, New World, Countdown, Magnum Sports, Mackay’s Pharmacy, Stratford Pharmacy, Ink Pot, and amazing generosity from 2 and More for their generosity. And also Beverly Perret who judged the even.

In Term 2 a highlight was visiting our marae, Whakaahurangi.

We were able to learn about our marae and our whānau house group names. We learnt the legend of Ruaputahanga, Turongo and Whatihua, learnt new waiata and how important our marae is to our place in Whakaahurangi.

Our Year 5-6 ākonga had a busy time competing in the Stratford Rippa competition on the 30th May. They played so well, winning one game, drawing two and losing two. They showed perseverance, teamwork and represented Te Kura o Ōtākaro, Avon School with pride. 

Māhuri Roma (Year 5-6) as part of their Kaitiakitanga learning were invited to join a planting event on the 26th of May to help the Eltham Lions plant over 900 trees to regenerate Soldiers Park. They had a great day and received amazing feedback from the team they helped. Tino pai rawe, Māhuri Roma.  (Photos to come)

As part of their Kaitiakitanga Unit - we can take action to improve our environment, we decided to investigate our 'rubbish' practises. What we found out was, as a kura we didn't know what we could recycle and how much of our waste doesn't need to go into the bin heading for the dump!

We are now recycling all paper as there was too much in the rubbish bin! We're also making sure our food scraps go into the compost bin. 

We've reduced our fortnightly wheelie bins by a third already and we've got more to change once our māra (garden) is in place.

Our ākonga have been fortunate to receive funding through the Toi foundation to continue the awesome swimming opportunities we had started through Tū Manawa in Term 1. 

Ākonga are able to develop not only their swimming skills but also life saving and water safety skills as well.